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To: The Phoenix who wrote (50321)	7/23/1998 8:59:00 PM
From: Kent Rattey	Respond to of 61433

Nothing can occur prior to Oct 1, and that includes talking, winking, pinching Mory on the ass when no ones looking, ETC. <G> Kent

To: The Phoenix who wrote (50321)	7/25/1998 11:09:00 PM
From: djane	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 61433

Gigabit Ethernet Vs ATM - Which Will Survive? July 24, 1998 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., Newsbytes via NewsEdge Corporation : Ethernet's inventor does not believe in peaceful coexistence, at least not among networking superpowers. "I think asynchronous transfer mode and Gigabit Ethernet are going to fight it out," Robert M. Metcalfe said this month at the Gignet conference. Metcalfe said he's putting his money on Gigabit Ethernet. He declared the ATM to the desktop campaign dead, adding that ATM is nearly dead on the LAN backbone and under attack on the WAN. But many ATM vendors at the conference predicted that the two networking superpowers will be forced to work together in mixed environments for the foreseeable future. "ATM will continue to be deployed on the wide area," said P.G.K. Menon, marketing director for Cabletron Systems Inc. [NYSE:CS] of Rochester, N.H. Even early adopters in the federal government are reconsidering end-to-end ATM in favor of Gigabit Ethernet, Menon said. "We expect the government to buy quite a few Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers," he said. Ethernet, which was introduced commercially in 1982, is ubiquitous on LANs running at 10 Mbps. Fast Ethernet, meanwhile, has quickly pulled ahead of Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI); both can deliver up to 100 Mbps over unshielded twisted-pair. One conference speaker noted that such contests are not always decided on technical merit. "There are no technical reasons why FDDI is being phased out. It's a good backbone," said Alan Brind, marketing vice president for Performance Technologies Inc. [NASDAQ:PTIX] of Rochester, N.Y. "Ethernet isn't resilient. FDDI is resilient." FDDI has lost its market share because upgrades and maintenance are difficult, Brind said. It has not disappeared, however, especially on government networks. And not even Metcalfe suggested that ATM will vanish in either the government or the commercial sector. Agencies "are buying ATM for the same reasons everybody else is," Metcalfe said. "ATM will persist as long as IP is one of many network services," he said, because its central strength is its ability to integrate services. Metcalfe did not always consider Ethernet superior to ATM. Five years ago, he had predicted that ATM's quality-of-service guarantees would make it prevail. But he said ATM has not delivered on its promise and, in the meantime, Gigabit Ethernet is threatening to catch up through Layer 4 switching. "You can do more with a packet in a connectionless system than you could before," Menon said. "All you do is look a little deeper into the packet to determine the session and maintain it." Layer 3 and 4 switches that guarantee service quality for packet switching are now being tested, Menon said. "I expect large-scale deployment to happen later this year or early next year," he said. That's when the final round could begin in what Metcalfe called a fight to the death. Reported by Government Computer News: gcn.com (19980723/WIRES NETWORK, TELECOM/) <<Newsbytes -- 07-23-98>> [Copyright 1998, NewsBytes]